The charity ship Open Arms was seen leaving Larnaca port in Cyprus, pulling a barge loaded with approximately 200 tonnes of flour, rice, and protein, according to a report

NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue boat Astral is seen through a porthole in central Mediterranean Sea, on 22 August, 2022. Reuters File

A vessel carrying nearly 200 tonnes of food departed from a port in Cyprus to Gaza early on Tuesday as part of a pilot project aimed at establishing a new maritime pathway for providing aid to a population teetering on the edge of famine in the war-torn region.

According to Reuters, the charity ship Open Arms was seen leaving Larnaca port in Cyprus, pulling a barge loaded with approximately 200 tonnes of flour, rice, and protein.

The mission, mostly funded by the United Arab Emirates, is being organised by US based charity World Central Kitchen (WCK), while Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms is supplying the ship.

“Our goal is to establish a maritime highway of boats and barges stocked with millions of meals continuously headed towards Gaza,” Reuters quoted WCK founder Jose Andres and chief executive officer Erin Gore as saying in a statement.

According to BBC, the initiative is separate from a US plan to construct and operate a floating pier close to the Gaza coast, which will allow swift delivery of humanitarian aid.

The charities intend to take aid directly to Gaza, which has been sealed off from the outside world since Israel began its offensive in response to an 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas.

With the lack of port infrastructure, WCK has said it was creating a landing jetty in Gaza with material from destroyed buildings and rubble.

It has said it had another 500 tonnes of aid amassed in Cyprus which would also be sent.

The development comes amid a report suggested that a famine that could kill thousands of Palestinian civilians in war-torn Gaza is “imminent” with situation being particularly dire in the northern part of Gaza, located at the opposite end of the strip from aid delivery points in the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah near the Egyptian border, where people have resorted to eating animal fodder.

According to a South China Morning Post report, citing United Nations’ top aid official in Gaza, famine may only be averted if Israel agrees to allow the current “trickle” of humanitarian aid to turn into a “roaring river”.

Around 576,000 individuals in Gaza, roughly a quarter of the population, were deemed by the UN in late February to be perilously close to famine and facing the prospect of a slow and agonising demise.

In the past couple of weeks, UN agencies and their partnering NGOs have sounded the alarm, stressing that only unrestricted access to significant quantities of food, medicine, fuel, supplies, and expertise can avert an impending disaster.

With minimal aid making its way to north Gaza, residents have resorted to feeding their hungry children animal fodder and foraged food, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on March 4. This dire situation has led to the heartbreaking news of children succumbing to malnutrition and dehydration in two hospitals, with the death toll reaching 25 by Saturday, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Before the outbreak of the ongoing conflict in October, approximately 500 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza from Egypt daily.

However, since the conflict began, with Hamas launching attacks on southern Israel resulting in casualties and kidnappings, Israel has significantly reduced the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza to fewer than 100 per day.

In response to the humanitarian crisis, the United States recently announced plans to construct a temporary floating military pier or causeway off the coast of Gaza to facilitate aid delivery. Additionally, the US has started airdropping aid in coordination with Egypt and three European nations.

With inputs from agencies

Published Date: March 12, 2024